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I'm curious as well. My guess is it would expand because there's not enough mass left to overcome the strong nuclear force.

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Not a physicist, but: "expansion" is probably understating it. My guess would be something analogous to an insanely powerful neutron bomb. Interesting thought experiment, would love to see someone do the actual maths.

"Neutron bomb" just means a nuke that releases a lot of neutrons while not exploding quite as much.

The energy density contained within a bit of neutron star matter makes a big explosion, and that will likely dominate over the more exotic processes.

A 10cm3 cube of neutron star would weigh about a billion tonnes, comparable to a cubic km of water ice. I wonder how all that mass would behave if left to expand with all the exotic physics involved - if it would just sort of... vaporize the planet.

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